The Bee Trucker Song

I sometimes notice that people think we have a lot more time than we really do, getting a daily show on the air.

On Tuesday morning, around 10:15, I asked Chion Wolf if she felt like writing a song about bee truckers. We had been getting ready for a show that focused, in part, on the whole business of moving hundreds -- even thousands -- of hives around to pollinate crops, and I had discovered that hauling bees is even harder, sometimes, than other kinds of long-haul trucking. The hives generate heat, so sometimes the trucker doesn't dare stop at all during the day for fear of frying his load.

There are several kinds of trucker songs. "Six Days on the Road" is probably the classic, and I started out thinking in terms of its amped-up pace. Then I started to think about the late great Lowell George, one of my muses. "Willin' " is a slower thing, but closer to what I wanted.

So I wrote a lyric, and handed it to Chion around 11:00 am. As is often the case, I said not a word about how I thought it should sound. I think she spent a little more time than usual writing the melody and recording it. But, by that, I mean she had this by noon.